persona non grata

Unmistakable voices from past to present
by Semone Maksimovic

When writing a CD review a few weeks back, I found myself succumbing to something that most music journalists shudder at the thought of… a tagline that screams an artist’s greatness and will forever haunt the writer thereafter, as people and other media pick the statement apart and test the truth of the remark.
So before a writer is to proceed, they must step back, take a breath and let it sit like a fine wine…thinking clearly about whether such a statement will stand the test of time and really is a fact, more than just a thought of the moment. The statement in question came about as I was reviewing The Valentinos’ new EP ‘Damn & Damn Again’ and went a little like this (for the curious): “Forget Paul Banks and Kele O’Kereke, Nik Yiannikas’ voice is the new sex!”

The conclusion came after listening to both of The Valentinos’ EPs and finding such depth, emotion and range to Nik’s voice. It reminded me of those amazing voices that have obsessed us over time, voices that have belonged to the likes of Robert Smith, Thom Yorke, PJ Harvey etc. Those voices that will always blow us away, no matter which track you find them haunting. Cause there’s just something about the way these vocalists manage to reach us on an emotional level, that hearing their voice just takes us away to another place, whether it be to wallow in the depths of our depression (Robert Smith, Paul Banks) or to hype us up beyond belief. Either way they take us somewhere that we can’t help but succumb to and it doesn’t matter how many years pass, or how many releases they are, there’s no way of pinning that person down, their range and creativity won’t cease to continually amaze us.

There are of course voices of a generation, with notable mentions going to Elvis, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley, but when you think about it, was there anything ever truly magical about every single piece of music that Elvis ever worked on? This came more from their success as popculture icons than for how they really made us melt each and every time they opened their mouths.

I mean, we can all remember the first time we heard Louise Rhodes’ amazing performance on ‘Gorecki’ right? Something about falling completely silent and having a single tear fall from our eye as the track’s curtains fell, right? Or the first time someone ever played you Robert Smith’s golden moment of romance on ‘Love Song’…same feeling, similar situation, goosebumps and an inexplicably sad mood, coming from the fact that someone may never quite love us enough to utter those sweet sentiments to us and truly mean them, but hey Robert Smith doing it was more than a fair trade off, wasn’t it?

The problem with a lot of vocalists today, is that they tend to fall all too happily into a stockpile of unidentifiable British accents or drawl along like a Southern farmer, they don’t concentrate so much on taking risks and using their voice to it’s full potential. I mean, how many band currently fall into the Britpop brackets, or slide in with the ever-growing emo trade? Is that really the way they dreamed of living out their days, or was it that they got bored, greedy and went in for the quick-sell, allowing managers and record companies dictate their soon to be doomed future?

So through a lot of the mindless crap that’s so readily available to any myspacer with enough time to trawl through it all online these days. It’s great to be reminded that there is something more out there, whenever a vocalist takes a risk and bares their soul every now and again. As for the tagline I recently made, I’d stick my life on it!